The Unintended Exceptional Fort Lauderdale

My favorite subject is the physical environment of Greater Fort Lauderdale and South Florida, the manmade, the natural and the history. A traveller should choose me as their guide because nobody knows the subject better than I do and nobody is more passionate about it. As a kid I loved showing visiting friends and relatives around my beloved Philadelphia. To paraphrase the Chicago Architecture Center Philadelphia was, and still is, my museum, only the exhibits begin in the 17th century and come to a crescendo in the last 40 years. My childhood enthusiasm for plants and landscape gardening led me to major in landscape architecture at Cornell. While architecture is about the building, because it’s about the place, landscape architecture is an avenue to a Planning career. More on that later. Upon settling in Miami after college I volunteered as a docent at Fairchild Tropical Garden, one of the top five tropical botanical gardens in the world. For the Miami Design Preservation League (MDPL) I volunteered leading hundreds of visitors on Art Deco District Walking Tours over the course of five years. At MDPL I also participated in Tour School, the annual tour guide training. After college while working in landscape architecture, guiding Art Deco District tours led me to branch careers in Historic Preservation advocacy and Architectural History. With respect to the former I coined Miami Modern--MiMo for short--as the term for the regional variation of the Postwar Modern period. I was instrumental in establishing historic districts encompassing iconic MiMo landmarks in Miami Beach and Miami. In 2004 I co-wrote the book on Midcentury Modern in South Florida. That year Miami Modern Revealed was published by Chronicle Books. Subsequently I co-wrote Miami Architecture, a guide to Miami and Miami Beach, published by University Press of Florida in 2010. My passion for showing people around places I love has led me to add a Fort Lauderdale and South Florida wing to the museum. Why is Fort Lauderdale the centerpiece of the new wing? Because secondary cities are my thing. Fort Lauderdale is to Miami what Philadelphia is to New York. And to know Fort Lauderdale one must know Miami. They are products of the Gilded Age. Neither would have been possible without oil tycoon Henry Flagler and Australian immigrant Mary Brickell. Miami is a poster child for the period. Fort Lauderdale is a reaction to it. Miami is the Capital of Latin America. Fort Lauderdale, in contrast, is a most American of cities. Yet they are both members in the very exclusive club of U.S. cities set in a Subtropical landscape. All of this was a prelude to working for the City of Fort Lauderdale Planning division 2008-2020. While there I was the lead planner for the buildings that have transformed the skyline. It was a dream job, though I couldn’t dream of such work until I was hired to do it. I know Fort Lauderdale as someone who helped build it. All this is why the curious should choose me as their Greater Fort Lauderdale guide.